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NFL ponders taking conference championship games to neutral sites
For years, Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt pushed for the NFL to move conference championship games to a neutral site. Every time Hunt brought the proposal to ownership, ownership voted it down.
Now, as Hunt’s Chiefs and the Buffalo Bills stand one win each away from the first ever neutral-site conference title game, Hunt’s vision may be moving toward becoming a reality.
The premature public proclamation that Bills and Chiefs fans bought 50,000 tickets in 24 hours becomes circumstantial evidence that the league is thinking about making all conference championship games neutral-site contests. Privately, we’ve tracked down some direct evidence of the NFL’s intentions.
Within the league office, the interest in neutral-site title games has become very real. The NFL envies the atmosphere of major college bowl games, where a 50/50 mix of fans are decked out in team colors. It’s one thing about college football that pro football does not fully replicate.
The Super Bowl, which has been played at a neutral site from its inception (the last two Super Bowl were coincidentally played in the home stadium of one of the two teams), lacks the same vibe as a major college bowl game. The crowd itself at a Super Bowl is often too neutral. Many who attend a Super Bowl do so for the experience, and because they can afford it. Also, for the fans of the teams that qualify, two weeks before kickoff is too late to score tickets — other than the limited amount made available to each franchise.
For a conference championship game at a neutral site, the tickets presumably would be handled in the same way they’ve been distributed for this year’s possible test run: half to the season-ticket holders of one team, half to the season-ticket holders of the other.
It’s one thing for some within the league’s power structure to want neutral-site conference championship games. It’s another for at least 24 owners to vote for it. But even if the Bills and Chiefs don’t make it to the next round this year, the league’s decision to tout the ticket sales becomes the foundation for the NFL to sell the possibility to owners and fans (many of whom aren’t interested in a neutral-site conference championship game) as innovative and ground-breaking and the next step in growing the game, by taking two more of its most significant events to different cites and stadiums, every year.
It doesn’t hurt that cities will jockey (and pay) for the privilege of hosting the conference championship games.
Yes, it robs the higher seed of the ability to host the game, one of the very real advantages of earning a higher spot on the playoff tree. It also impacts some of the profit generated by the home team. But not as much as a regular home game.
Although, as we understand it, the team that hosts a conference championship currently gets its expenses reimbursed (not to exceed 15 percent of the gross ticket revenue), the rest of the money goes to the league for distribution to all teams. The only real profit for hosting such games comes from parking, concessions, and some ancillary hospitality.
Fans won’t like it, in theory. If it happens this year, fans will get to witness it — and the league will get to hype it up, relentlessly. Even if that’s not enough to sway public opinion, public opinion hasn’t stopped the league from making other innovations.
Fans didn’t like the exportation of regular-season home games to Europe. And it’s been happening, and growing, for 15 years.
What will we do, not watch the conference championship games? The league knows we can’t get enough of the NFL, and our appetite will not decline by even the slightest if/when conference championships are played at a neutral site.
Mystery divers rescued near Polish energy sites in the middle of the night offer dubious explanation, and vanish
Coast guards rescued three divers off the northern coast of Poland over the weekend whose dubious explanation of their night-time dive near critical energy infrastructure, along with their mysterious identities, has reportedly sparked a cross-agency investigation. The three men, who told authorities they were Spanish nationals, were rescued near the Polish coastal city of Gdansk on Saturday night after their small motorboat broke down and they couldn’t return to shore.
Since then, doubts over their intentions have mounted. They were rescued not far from the Naftoport facility at the Port of Gdansk, which receives tanker shipments of oil and other and petroleum products. They were also found near an area where there are plans to build a new floating natural gas terminal.
Pomeranian Police
The Maritime Search and Rescue Service SAR told CBS News the rescue operation involved police officers, firefighters, and medical workers. SAR spokesman Rafal Goeck described the rescue operation — at just before 2 a.m. local time — as “rather unnatural.”
“We received a signal from the fire brigade about a vessel in trouble,” Goeck told CBS News, adding that conditions at the time were rough, with strong winds and high seas. The air temperature was only about 43 degrees Fahrenheit, and the water was closer to 37.
“In my 12-year career at the Maritime Search and Rescue Service, I have not experienced anything like that,” he said. “It is a rather unnatural thing to be diving under these conditions.”
Michal Fludra/NurPhoto/Getty
The red, 13-foot pleasure boat broke down about three nautical miles north of Gdansk. The vessel’s crew said they’d been struggling for six hours to get it running again. There was no explanation as to why they might have waited so long, in the dark and cold on a rough sea, to call for help.
Police officials determined that the men were not authorized to operate the boat and had not obtained permission to dive. According to Polish media reports, only one of the men had a Spanish passport, while the others offered only verbal identification.
Another wrinkle was their explanation: The men claimed to have been searching for amber. While the Baltic Sea is famous for its vast deposits of amber, searching for it in the dark is unlikely to be a successful strategy.
Gdansk Maritime Assistance Service (SAR)
Seasoned amber hunters interviewed by Polish media said one more thing didn’t add up: The men had an underwater scooter, used to drag divers swiftly through the water — something that wouldn’t help in a hunt for small objects on the seafloor, especially as such a device’s propeller lifts debris from the bottom, decreasing visibility.
Officers apparently saw nothing suspicious at first in the fact that the men were diving near critical infrastructure at night with no permit and atypical amber-hunting equipment, and the local police did not pursue the matter, releasing the men without further questioning.
They have all reportedly left Poland.
Cezary Przepiorka, deputy captain of the Port of Gdansk, told Polish media that only one of the men had formal identification, and the phone numbers offered by the divers were either incorrect or non-functional.
Police and the Polish Internal Security Agency have begun investigating the matter. Various reports say Poland’s Central Investigation Bureau of Police, a unit that deals with organized crime, is the lead agency. The bureau declined CBS News’ request to comment on the case.
The incident has raised serious concerns about the protection of vital national energy infrastructure as Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine continues to keep energy prices sky-high. A thorough investigation can be expected, especially so soon after the sabotage attack on the undersea Nordstream 1 gas pipeline just weeks ago.
European and U.S. officials have strongly suggested that Russia was behind the attack on the pipeline.
Poland’s port of Gdansk, which is vital to the country’s energy supplies, sits only about 20 miles from Russia’s far-flung, equally strategic western territory of Kaliningrad.
Twitter to suspend accounts linking to other social media sites
He then launched a Twitter poll, surveying users on whether he should step down. Musk had abided by past polls, despite them being unscientific and unrepresentative.
“Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll,” he wrote. He added shortly after: “As the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it.”
Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022
Respondents leaned heavily toward “Yes” in Musk’s poll, indicating Musk should step down, after nearly an hour of voting: 58 percent of more than 3 million votes were in favor of him handing over the reins. The poll was set to expire Monday morning before the opening of the stock market. The value of Tesla’s stock — the source of much of Musk’s net worth — has recently plunged. Investors have said Musk stepping aside from Twitter would improve Tesla’s outlook
Musk’s sudden reversal came after Twitter earlier in the day said it would start suspending accounts linking to “prohibited platforms” such as Facebook and Instagram if those accounts are “used for the main purpose of promoting content on another social platform,” according to the announcement Sunday.
The policy, dated this month and tweeted Sunday afternoon, said tweets promoting accounts on some sites may be removed if users urge their Twitter followers to join them elsewhere.
“At both the tweet level and the account level, we will remove any free promotion of prohibited 3rd-party social media platforms,” the policy said. It lists several examples of such social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram and Truth Social, which former president Donald Trump co-founded.
Musk’s ownership of Twitter — which he bought in October for $44 billion — has plunged the site into turmoil. He ousted the company’s executives and installed a team of loyalists, laid off more than half the staff and dialed back Twitter’s content moderation. He has engaged in misinformation as the site’s owner and hastily rolled out new and confusing changes, courting controversy and alarming advertisers, some of whom paused their spending on the site.
His sudden and sometimes arbitrary decisions have grated on many of Twitter’s core users and staff, but also some of his own supporters who pushed his ownership bid rooted in a “free speech” driven approach.
Already Sunday, Musk appeared to be losing the support of some who had backed his management moves at Twitter over the new policy.
George Hotz, a software developer whom Musk hired for an internship at the company after he tweeted enthusiastically about the business mogul’s takeover, tweeted a link to his Instagram account Sunday night.
“If saying that is banned, this isn’t somewhere I want to be anymore. That’s so far from free speech,” he wrote in a tweet.
It was a far cry from just weeks ago, when Musk issued an ultimatum to Twitter staff saying they would need to commit to an “extremely hardcore” pace to build the new Twitter.
“This is the attitude that builds incredible things. Let all the people who don’t desire greatness leave,” Hotz had written.
Meanwhile, Twitter users criticized the suspension of Paul Graham, who had spoken highly of Musk’s leadership, but also promoted his Mastodon handle on Twitter, screenshots on the site showed.
“This is the last straw,” he wrote, according to screenshots posted to the site. Graham’s account was suspended shortly after.
That prompted hordes of users, including National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, to weigh in. “This is a bad policy and should be reversed,” he wrote in a tweet.
The moves put Musk on the defensive, and he appeared to respond to the backlash, a rare move for the leader of Twitter since he took over in October.
“Paul’s account will be restored shortly,” he wrote in a tweet.
Twitter has slashed most of its public relations team since Musk took over the company in October, and Musk did not respond to an emailed list of questions about the new rule earlier in the day.
Musk, the billionaire owner of Tesla and SpaceX, recently suspended and reinstated a slew of high-profile journalists who he said had violated Twitter’s rules.
In the weeks since Twitter’s sale was finalized, Musk has dialed back enforcement of many of the site’s previous policies regarding hate speech and misinformation, while turning in some cases to unscientific polls to make decisions, like reinstating former president Donald Trump.
The new policy banning links to some other social media sites follows many prominent Twitter users promoting their alternate accounts, often expressing the opinion that staying on Twitter may become untenable as Musk overhauls the platform.
On Sunday, the company’s announcement prompted debate about whether the move could create legal challenges for Twitter.
“This is the clearest declaration of weakness I’ve ever seen from a major US tech platform, and a transparent declaration of anticompetitive intent that a GC would set themselves on fire to prevent (if somebody had that job at Twitter),” tweeted former Facebook chief security officer Alex Stamos, using an abbreviation for “general counsel.” He now leads the Stanford Internet Observatory, “a research, teaching and policy program focused on abuse in information technology,” according to its website.
In addition to linking to Facebook, Instagram and Truth Social, promoting the social media sites Mastodon, Tribel, Post and Nostr is restricted under Twitter’s new policy announced earlier Sunday. Third-party link aggregators such as linktr.ee and lnk.bio are also prohibited. Listing a social media handle without a URL is not allowed.
Twitter said a first violation of this policy may range from requiring deletion of a tweet to temporarily locking an account. An account may be suspended if the violation is in the bio or account name, the company said. Subsequent breaches of the policy could lead to permanent suspension.
Twitter’s abrupt suspension of several high-profile journalists last week, including one from The Washington Post, came as Musk claimed that they had shared “basically assassination coordinates” for him and his family — an apparent reference to tweets about the platform suspending an account using public flight data to track Musk’s private plane. Twitter allowed several of the journalists to return to the platform Saturday.
Musk also temporarily suspended, and then reinstated, a second Post reporter this weekend.
“Again, the suspension occurred with no warning, process or explanation — this time as our reporter merely sought comment from Musk for a story,” Washington Post Executive Editor Sally Buzbee said in a statement Sunday. “Post journalists should be reinstated immediately, without arbitrary conditions.”
On Sunday, Musk was at the World Cup finale in Qatar, tweeting posts from the match.
Betting sites urge caution after accounts accessed, funds withdrawn
Online sports betting operators on Monday were encouraging customers to take steps to protect their accounts after multiple companies saw fraudulent activity in recent weeks.
DraftKings said Monday that a “small number” of betting accounts were accessed by unauthorized users, leading to approximately $300,000 in customer funds being withdrawn in an attack the company believes was caused by login information being stolen from third-party sites.
Sports betting media site The Action Network reported that at least one customer was locked out of their DraftKings account Sunday and had money withdrawn from the bank account that was used to make deposits with the sportsbook.
“DraftKings is aware that some customers are experiencing irregular activity with their accounts. We currently believe that the login information of these customers was compromised on other websites and then used to access their DraftKings accounts where they used the same login information,” Paul Liberman, DraftKings co-founder, said in a statement. “We have seen no evidence that DraftKings’ systems were breached to obtain this information. We have identified less than $300,000 of customer funds that were affected, and we intend to make whole any customer that was impacted.
“We strongly encourage customers to use unique passwords for DraftKings and all other sites, and we strongly recommend that customers do not share their passwords with anyone, including third party sites for the purposes of tracking betting information on DraftKings and other betting apps.”
Ryan Butler, a journalist who covers the game industry, wrote on Twitter on Monday that his DraftKings account was hacked and that FanDuel emailed him that there was an attempt to gain access to his FanDuel account.
FanDuel reported increased activity from unauthorized actors attempting to gain access to accounts, but “thus far customers have not been impacted,” a company spokesperson said Monday afternoon. Caesars Sportsbook also said Monday that it had not been impacted.
The unauthorized access at DraftKings came just weeks after multiple professional poker players reported having unauthorized betting accounts being set up in their names with BetMGM and used to withdraw money from personal checking accounts. Todd Witteles, a well-known poker pro from California, said someone set up a sports betting account with his name in late October in West Virginia, deposited $10,000 out of his checking account to the sports betting account and withdrew $7,500 to a Venmo debit card on the same day. Witteles estimates upward of 50 poker players experienced a similar issue at BetMGM that mostly occurred in late October and early November. BetMGM said it is actively investigating the situation.
“The security of our patrons’ accounts is of the utmost importance to us,” a BetMGM spokesperson said in a statement to ESPN on Friday. “We encourage any impacted patrons to contact our customer service department directly.”
It is not known whether the incidents at DraftKings and BetMGM are connected.
No alcohol sales permitted at Qatar’s World Cup stadium sites
DOHA Nov 18 (Reuters) – Alcoholic beer will not be sold at Qatar’s World Cup stadiums, world soccer governing body FIFA said on Friday, a last minute reversal which raised questions among some supporters about the host country’s ability to deliver on promises to fans.
The announcement comes two days before Sunday’s kickoff of the World Cup, the first to be held in a conservative Muslim country with strict controls on alcohol, the consumption of which is banned in public.
“Following discussions between host country authorities and FIFA, a decision has been made to focus the sale of alcoholic beverages on the FIFA Fan Festival, other fan destinations and licensed venues, removing sales points of beer from Qatar’s FIFA World Cup 2022 stadium perimeters,” a FIFA spokesperson said in a statement.
England’s Football Supporters’ Association said the decision raises concerns about Qatar’s ability to fulfil its promises to visiting fans on “accommodation, transport or cultural issues.”
For years, Qatar’s tournament organisers have said that alcohol would be widely accessible to fans at the tournament.
“Some fans like a beer at the match, and some don’t, but the real issue is the last-minute U-turn which speaks to a wider problem — the total lack of communication and clarity from the organising committee towards supporters,” the association said in a statement on Twitter.
Qatar, the smallest country to host a World Cup, is bracing for the expected arrival of 1.2 million fans during the month long tournament, more than a third of the Gulf Arab state’s 3 million population.
Budweiser, a major World Cup sponsor, owned by beer maker AB InBev, was to exclusively sell alcoholic beer within the ticketed perimeter surrounding each of the eight stadiums three hours before and one hour after each game.
“Some of the planned stadium activations cannot move forward due to circumstances beyond our control,” AB InBev said in a statement.
Someone at the company had summed the situation up in a pithier fashion. “Well, this is awkward…” read a post on Budweiser’s official Twitter account. The comment, subsequently deleted, was broadcast as a screengrab by the BBC.
Budweiser has been a World Cup sponsor since 1985, the year before the event was held in Mexico. For 2022, it has launched its biggest ever campaign, with activities for Budweiser and other brands in more than 70 markets and at 1.2 million bars, restaurants and retail outlets.
The World Cup typically boosts beer consumption and the Belgium-based maker of brands such as Stella Artois and Corona clearly want to profit from the millions of dollars it pays to be a sponsor.
[1/3] Soccer Football – FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 – Abdullah bin Khalifa Stadium, Doha, Qatar – November 18, 2022 Budweiser tents are pictured outside the stadium ahead of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 REUTERS/Hannah Mckay
However, it has said those profits will come less from consumption at the event’s location but from fans watching on television.
“Tournament organisers appreciate AB InBev’s understanding and continuous support to our joint commitment to cater for everyone during the FIFA World Cup,” the statement said.
LONG-TERM NEGOTIATIONS
The stadium reversal comes after long-term negotiations between FIFA president Gianni Infantino, Budweiser, and executives from Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (SC), which is organising the World Cup, a source with knowledge of the negotiations told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
The SC did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment and FIFA did not confirm Infantino’s involvement.
“A larger number of fans are attending from across the Middle East and South Asia, where alcohol doesn’t play such a large role in the culture,” the source said.
“The thinking was that, for many fans, the presence of alcohol would not create an enjoyable experience.”
Alcohol will continue to flow freely inside stadium VIP suites, which FIFA’s website advertises as offering a selection of beers, Champagne, sommelier-selected wines, and premium spirits.
Budweiser will sell its non-alcoholic beer throughout the stadium precincts for $8.25 per half-litre, the statement said.
Questions have swirled around the role alcohol would play at this year’s World Cup since Qatar won hosting rights in 2010. While not a “dry” state like neighbouring Saudi Arabia, consuming alcohol in public places is illegal in Qatar.
Visitors cannot bring alcohol into Qatar, even from the airport’s duty free section, and most cannot buy alcohol at the country’s only liquor store. Alcohol is sold in bars at some hotels, where beer costs around $15 per half-litre.
Budweiser will still sell alcoholic beer at the main FIFA Fan Fest in central Doha, the source said, where it is offered for about $14 per half-litre. Alcohol will also be sold in some other fan zones whereas others are alcohol-free.
“Fans can decide where they want to go without feeling uncomfortable. At stadiums, this was previously not the case,” the source said.
Reporting by Andrew Mills in Doha with contributions from Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels and Manasi Pathak in Doha; Writing by Andrew Mills; Editing by Jan Harvey and Christian Radnedge
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
From Trump to Kanye and Musk: why are the super-rich buying social media sites? | Digital media
Ever wonder what the richest man in the world buys? Elon Musk, rated No 1 by Forbes on its 2022 list of billionaires, may soon own a social media network imbued with so much political capital it could fracture nations.
It’s the latest expression of an uncomfortable truth: tech CEOs have become the most crucial political gatekeepers in modern media history. Not by running for office – a cliche for today’s moneyed elite – but by using social media ownership as a proxy for political influence.
It’s a trend years in the making. From the political largess of former Facebook executives like Sheryl Sandberg and Joel Kaplan to the metapolitics of Peter Thiel, tech titans have long adopted an inside/outside playbook for conducting politics by other means.
But recent developments, including Donald Trump’s investment in Twitter clone Truth Social and Kanye West’s supposed agreement to purchase ailing social network Parler, illustrate how crucial these new technologies have become in politics. More than just communication tools, platforms have become the stage on which politics is played.
Trump, for one, appears to have understood the trend. Despite all his storm and bluster, the former president never cracked the top 1,000 of the Forbes richest list, but he and Musk do appear to have one thing in common: they’re both investing in social media companies they intend to use to transform politics and society.
The vision of social media owners like Musk and Trump for the internet’s future could profoundly impact the political landscape.
In our new book, Meme Wars: The Untold Story of the Online Battles Upending Democracy in America, my co-authors and I trace the rise of global communications companies through the eyes of the bad actors who have used these technologies to gain recognition. As researchers, we were alarmed by the power of social media companies to influence politics from Occupy to the January 6 insurrection. We charted the rise of technology companies in the last decade and their changing content moderation policies to show how the design of social media platforms provides strategic advantages to those willing to employ digital dirty tricks to incite the public. The way that Trump was able to mobilize a large group of rioters to disrupt the election process proved that It Can’t Happen Here had been happening for years.
As technologies like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook have become more and more consequential for how the public gathers information about politicians and elections, so has the power of those who control them. In our digital age, the information superhighway is full of tolls, from the purchasing of legitimate pathways through digital advertising to preferential fast passes by tech CEOs and dark money used to game algorithmic recommendations and search engine optimization. And because there are no regulations for the integrity of civic information online, the public is betrothed to the whims of CEOs’ personal moral codes.
That means that Musk’s vision for Twitter matters. Musk has stated that he plans to take Twitter private and perhaps roll it into a new app. In May, he said he’d reverse the platform’s ban on Trump, potentially paving the way for the return of others from the former president’s digital army, like US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, the far right activist Milo Yiannopoulos, Baked Alaska (the former Buzzfeed journalist turned white nationalist livestreamer who was arrested after the January 6 insurrection) and the far right nationalist Nick Fuentes. All of these pundits have attained political superstardom by riding the wave of support for Trump’s Make America Great Again movement, while also using social media – and livestreaming in particular – to broadcast conspiracy theories, violence and hate.
Musk, and other new platform owners, not only influence what information gets shared. They could also remove guardrails on the ways platforms are used to move money. No doubt whatever Twitter morphs into, it will include some form of digital cash exchange as another way to undermine the power of governments. If you don’t believe me, remember that Wells Fargo carried packages before it turned into a bank.
Further, politicians turning to tech companies for support begins with political messaging and could easily morph into political donations of another sort: from silencing opponents and amplifying preferred candidates to sowing confusion during moments of crisis.
Trump’s return to Twitter could signal a smash-and-grab on the White House, or perhaps it could mean nothing at all – just as Ye’s antisemitic tweets won’t mean much until they are quoted in the manifesto of the next mass murderer (similar to how “subscribe to PewDiePie” only became a commonly known phrase after the influencer was quoted by a mass shooter who killed more than 50 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand).
The success of figures like Musk and Trump to use social media platforms also depends on buy-in from the public at large. If journalists abandoned Twitter, it would no longer have the social and political influence it does now.
In many ways, the infamous provocateur journalist Andrew Breitbart was right: politics are downstream of culture. To this I’d add that culture is downstream of infrastructure. The politics we get are the ones that sprout from our technology, so we should cultivate a digital public infrastructure that does not rely on the whims of billionaires. If we do not invest in building an online public commons, our speech will only be as free as our hopefully benevolent dictators say it is.
Swedish probe finds signs of ‘detonations’ at Nord Stream leak sites
A Swedish investigation of leaks in two Russian natural gas pipelines that run under the Baltic Sea to Europe found evidence that “detonations” caused extensive damage, strengthening suspicions of “serious sabotage.”
Sweden’s Security Service said Thursday that it had seized evidence of what caused the ruptures in Nord Stream 1 and 2 last week but did not provide details.
Authorities had noted when the leaks in the pipelines off of Sweden and Denmark were first disclosed that explosions were recorded in the area.
Denmark and Sweden have suspected that explosives were used to sabotage the pipelines that carry natural gas to Germany after high levels of methane were detected.
At the time of the ruptures, the pipelines were not carrying gas, but some residue remained in the lines.
The incident ignited a new round of tension between Washington and Moscow over Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Russia accused the US of sabotaging the lines, saying Washington and its allies had the most to gain from restricting energy supplies to Europe, claims the West denies.
Europe, which had received up to 40% of its gas from Russia before the Ukraine invasion in February, is facing an energy crisis this winter after Moscow cut off its supply.
The investigation into the leaks by the Swedish Coast Guard and Navy would have involved unmanned vehicles, Swedish Navy spokesman Jimmie Adamsson said, because the pipes are in water about 230 feet deep.
With Post wires
Twitch Bans Big Gambling Sites After Streamers Threaten Strike
It’s been a rough 24 hours for people broadcasting in purple. After a scandal broke that a Twitch streamer had been scamming viewers and peers alike out of an alleged $200,000 to fund a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive addiction, top personalities started exerting pressure on the live-streaming company to do something about the larger, underlying problem. Gambling, many have been arguing for a while now, has become a scourge on the platform, as a number of rich creators promoted potentially harmful content to young, impressionable fans. While Twitch appeared to just let it happen for a long time, the Amazon-owned platform announced a massive change regarding gambling streams today that will have big ramifications for creators and viewers alike.
According to a new update issued on social media, Twitch will no longer allow “streaming of gambling sites that include slots, roulette, or dice games that aren’t licensed in the U.S. or other jurisdictions that provide sufficient consumer protections.” The list currently includes Stake.com, Rollbit.com, Duelbits.com, and Roobet.com though Twitch says that it may expand as the company continues to evaluate the situation. Twitch will however continue to allow sports betting, fantasy sports, and poker. These appear to be the high-level changes that will take effect starting on October 18th, and Twitch is geared to share more specifics soon.
While we don’t yet have all the information regarding gambling on the platform, it’s likely that Twitch is sharing these key details early due to all the commotion that’s been kicked up in late September. Earlier this week, streamers like Pokimane suggested they would team up with some of the other popular personalities on the platform and strike during a high-volume time, like Christmas, unless Twitch issued a statement on the crisis or decreed new gambling rules.
While the new rules don’t ban gambling outright, they do take aim at some of the biggest websites that are either favored by streamers, or sponsor well-known streamers. And the ramifications will be huge: Not only is gambling one of the most popular categories of content, with the biggest faces on the platform such as xQc partaking, some creators like Tyler Faraz “Trainwreck” Niknam have stated that they make up to a million a month from the gambling companies they feature on-stream.
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That’s not counting how much might be made from viewers gambling while sharing the referral codes streamers blast on stream (something they no longer can do), or any other sponsorships a Twitch streamer might receive through more conventional means on the platform. While these streamers have stressed in the past that they’ve told viewers not to gamble themselves, it was obvious that business was booming.
In its announcement, Twitch reminded people that it already had some gambling rules in place, but that “some people circumvent those rules and expose our community to potential harm.”
While the new rules aren’t live yet, people who pushed for this change are celebrating. There was, after all, plenty of skepticism over whether or not Twitch would do anything further about gambling, with some highly-visible creators like Hasan Abi expressing that the activity simply generated too much revenue for the platform to prohibit it outright.
“We did it y’all,” Pokimane, who got over 300,000 people expressing support against gambling streams in a single day, tweeted. “Public pressure, tweets, raising awareness, it all matters.”
Ukraine: At least 21 ’filtration’ sites identified in Russian-controlled territory, say Yale researchers
The researchers say these sites are used by Russian forces and their allies to process, register, interrogate and detain Ukrainians trying to leave Russian-occupied territory. Those detained can include civilians and prisoners of war.
The Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab (Yale HRL) in collaboration with US State Department-supported Conflict Observatory used open-source information and high-resolution satellite imagery to map them.
According to the report, there is evidence suggesting they were set up even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began and grew following the capture of Mariupol in April.
“The conditions reported by those released from the facilities examined here can constitute cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment under international humanitarian and human rights law,” the study says, adding that the “conditions include overcrowded facilities, a lack of access to adequate sanitation, insufficient food and clean water, exposure to the elements, denial of medical care, and the use of isolation.”
“In some specific instances, the treatment described as having been endured by those released, such as use of electric shocks, extreme conditions of isolation, and physical assault, may potentially constitute torture if proven,” the study says.
In a separate press release Thursday, the US State Department described the “unlawful transfer and deportation of protected persons” described in the study as “a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians and constitutes a war crime.”
Volnovakha Correctional Colony is one of the sites described in the study. Detailed findings allege it is a long-term facility for those who didn’t pass filtration along with prisoners of war who surrendered after the Azovstal steel plant siege.
The study notes the accounts of apparent survivors who described among other things: overcrowded cells, forced labor and even torture. Yale HRL says it identified two areas of disturbed earth along the south and southwest sections of that facility which appear to be mass graves.
An account cited in the report from someone described as a “survivor” also claimed a cellmate had been working a shift digging graves inside the colony. In July there was a deadly explosion there in which Ukrainian separatists say 53 POWs were killed, but the satellite images used for the report predate this.
The Yale study notes that “without further investigation, including the ability to independently excavate these locations, no definitive determination can be made about what these sites may contain based only on the evidence in this report.”
Threats and humiliation
Earlier this year CNN spoke to a number of Ukrainians who went through “filtration” and described facing threats and humiliation during the process. They say they were asked about their politics, future plans and views on the war. Some of the people who spoke to CNN said they knew of others who had been picked up by Russian troops or separatist soldiers and disappeared without a trace.
The Kremlin has denied using so-called filtration camps to cover up wrongdoing and targeting civilians in Mariupol.
In the Yale study, the Russian Embassy in Washington said the system “is about checkpoints for civilians leaving the active combat zone. In order to avoid sabotage operations by the Ukrainian nationalists’ battalions, Russian soldiers carefully inspect vehicles heading to safe regions.” It adds that it will “detain bandits and fascists” and that the Russian military does not create barriers for civilians but helps them by providing food and medicine.
In CNN reporting from July, Dmitry Vaschenko, an official with Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations in Taganrog, said housing would be given to Ukrainians, who were also free to seek work and send their children to school.
“When hostilities end in the future, all these arrivals can make the decision to return to their homeland. Whoever wishes to remain in Russia, the Russian government takes such an obligation — they will receive a full range of social services and are protected,” he said.
When asked about the process to allow refugees into Russia, he said there were “filtration points” on the border.
“They are checking people who appear aggressively disposed towards the Russian Federation,” he said. “Filtering occurs precisely upon arrival, there are no ‘mass camps.’ They are border-crossing points, nothing more.”
The self-declared DPR has denied accusations by Ukrainian authorities of unlawful detentions, filtration and maltreatment of Ukrainian citizens and said that those arriving at what it calls ”reception centers” are properly fed and provided medical attention.
“The Donetsk oblast filtration system run by Russia and their proxies represents an urgent human rights emergency,” Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of Yale HRL said in the press release from the Yale School of Public Health. “International monitors need unfettered access to these facilities today. Every day that passes without independent monitors being present in these locations increases the risk that grave human rights abuses may be occurring with impunity.”
According to the study’s methodology, “each source was evaluated using criteria established by the Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations.”
It added that data points “were cross-referenced against recent very high-resolution satellite imagery. Five independent sources had to corroborate a site’s location and the filtration activities alleged to occur there for the site to be included in the report. Twenty-one sites met or exceeded that threshold.”